Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Knitting Neuroses on Parade

When blogging was brand new to me and I was trying out everything including memes,* I took a bunch of those online quizzes that were being passed around like smallpox and discovered that I am:

St. Vincent de Paul;

the color orange;

Paris, France; and

a pelican.

There was also at least one quiz about what kind of Knitter you are. I didn't bother taking that one. I already know what kind of knitter I am. I am a Weirdo Knitter.

To those who have known me long, this will come as no surprise. I was an odd baby, a quizzical child, a peculiar teenager, and a strange young adult. Now, with dotage fast approaching, I share my apartment with a cigarette-smoking sheep and fifty balls of talking, homosexual sock yarn. Le Tricoteur Bizarre, c'est moi.

I offer the following two Unfinished Objects in support of my diagnosis.

Exhibit A: A Nearly-Finished Baby Surprise Jacket

Once again, I'm knitting for a baby with no baby in sight. Inexplicable. Especially as on the continuum of Inborn Parental Urge I lie somewhere between a bag of Fritos and the witch in Hansel and Gretel.Exhibit B: A Single Poetry Mitten Cuff

I was so excited that I almost hyperventilated when a nice lady at Knitting Camp turned me onto a Piecework Magazine pattern for mittens with poetry worked into them. Oh yes please, I squealed, and ran right out to Arcadia Knitting and bought this perfectly luscious yarn in three colors, and the proper needles, and then I sat down and knit the first cuff all at once and then I stopped short.

Because the poem in the pattern, while appropriately wintery, is just not me. It doesn't speak to my experience of winter and mittens and snow. I simply can go no further until I've picked out verses that do, and fit them into the chart.

So for four weeks I've been staring at the cuff and rummaging through my library in search of Just the Right Poem.

I've considered the Shakespeare lyric "Blow, blow thou winter wind," but then I've thought it might be too pessimistic and does one really wish to look down at one's mittens and feel depressed?

I thought about Ezra Pound's 'Winter is icummen in" but worried that the repeated "Goddamm" might render the mittens unwearable at, for example, elegant holiday parties and job interviews. And again, there's the pessimism issue.

I tossed around some lovely winter haiku, but then I realized I hate haiku.

I've woken up at 3 a.m. seized with sudden inspiration, and jumped out of bed, and spent an hour paging through a stack of anthologies before realizing the poem I'd been thinking of doesn't actually exist.

And you may threat, cajole, or place a gun to my head, but I cannot continue with these mittens until the matter is settled. At this point, I expect I might finish them by July. Of 2009.

Since You Asked

Marie in Florida wanted to know what's on the little card on my altar. It changes from time to time–I write down lines from sutras, or koans, or what-have-you that seems appropriate for the time. Right now, I've got the Four Bodhisattvic Vows, which we say at the Zen Center after each period of zazen and which I recite every day:

All beings without numberI vow to liberate.Endless blind passionsI vow to uproot.Dharma gates beyond measureI vow to penetrate.The Great Way of BuddhaI vow to attain.

64 comments:

Dare I suggest that you (or perhaps some loving fan) WRITE the mitten poem? I mean, there's a sock poem, why not a mitten poem? Why not one written by a knitter? a mitten knitting knitter even?I'm just sayin'

(Why do I now fear that I'll be working on stanzas instead of sleeping??)

Baby? Did you say baby? Do you need a baby to knit for? WE VOLUNTEER! QUEER FAMILY WITH ALMOST-BABY OVER HERE IN CALIFORNIA!

Seriously, Franklin, my partner and I are BIG fans of yours, and we're expecting in March and WE CAN'T EVEN BUY ONESIES WITH DOLORES ON THEM BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE THEM IN YOUR SHOP! Not that I'm complaining, really, but we love you and your blog and we're sure our baby will too. So we need something to introduce him/her to you. By March, ok? Kisses.

As I can't see an obvious email address with which to address you personally, Franklin, I'm going to leave this question in your comments in the hopes that I can get some help.

I'm looking for a decent book, or source of other format, that would get me started knitting lace. I'm an advanced intermediate knitter (that sounds so corny), so I definitely know my way around a pattern - we aren't talking bare nothin's here. When I look for Crochet lace on Amazon, I get next to nothing, and knitting lace way too much. Thus I need input from someone who has already done the deed.

PS I found a link to a DVD of Enchanted April - on Amazon . Be warned, its Zone 4, but you can acutally buy players and download software that will allow you to play all zones (sorry, if you already knew that).

I love the Baby Surprise jacket. It was my first EZ project and a wonderful introduction to the way Elizabeth thinks. The most openly written pattern (not the hold-your-hand-at-every-turn type we are used to).

I haven't read your blog long, and might be a tad presumptious with a suggestion as my first comment...but...might I suggest instead of a poem on them, a koan? Whether it is about winter or not, one of the 'pay attention to the journey' type would be fitting, I think.

I made myself a snow ball as perfect as could be.I thought I'd keep it as a pet and let it sleep with me.I made it some pajamas and a pillow for it's head.Then, last night it ran away.But first -- it wet the bed.-Shel Silverstein

You can borrow my poem if it suits you: http://mindofwinter.prettyposies.com/archives/000154.htmlIf you do, you must send me the pattern however, as I wouldn't be much of a mindofwinter without some. xox,

How about "Vidistine matellam meam pulchram parvam?" I'm embarrassed to say that my bachelor's degree is Latin and I barely translate what you wrote. Not because of your syntax or vocabulary, but just because I *sucked* at it.

And dude. If the poem's in your head and it only exists there, put it on your mittens. I put mine in literary journals and those don't keep anyone warm (unless, of course, they're being used to start fires...) so I think you'd be ahead of the game.

What does it say about me that the Ezra Pound poem is the first one that came to my mind? Even though I love winter and even though I know Pound was a psycho fascist, I still love that poem. Of course, I don't go to elegant parties, and the people I work with would love mittens that said "Goddamm". Lhudely sung, even.

What about a take on Robert Frost. "My little horse must think me queer...."

Flesh has fallen away. Trees/ And buildings are summer's skeleton;/ Wind has loosened, disarrayed/ The separate ribs, the evidence of bone./ Dead, deposited relics/ Shored up clean against a stiffened sky,/ Fixed by the mortician cold/ Moving his fingers over them ceaselessly;/ While the snow, decently to inter,/ Drifts between the spaces, everywhere.

If you don't use that for your poetry mittens then I'm using them for mine. Hell, I think I'll use it whether you do or not; too bad I sold all my Pieceworks at my yard sale this summer.

speaking of baby things, a smallish t-shirt for a 4 year old with the "it itches" logo would be quite the hit in these parts. Of course, given my particular four-year-old, perhaps Dolores might be preferable.

Two lines of a wintery poem everyone knows over here... and if someone knows something about winter, it's got to be us in Québec! So, the first two lines of "Soir d'hiver" by Emile Nelligan:Ah! comme la neige a neigé!Ma vitre est un jardin de givre.The rest might be a bit depressing (to say the least!), but most people only remember those two lines anyway. Surefire hit if ever you come and visit us in Montréal!

Exhibit A is known as the "Baby Ahead Sweater." You know that suddenly it won't be safe to drink the water in some office or other because 5 people you know will be preggers at the same time! So the only way to go is to always have at least one "baby ahead" sweater.

Gracious, I love the alternative suggestions; I've had that mitten pattern for quite a while - I've been smitten with it since Nanette Blanchard of Knitting in Color made one (just one) mitten a few years ago; I wonder if you'll be the person to complete the pair?

I love the poetry suggestions so far, and a few do get a bit depressing after the first couple of lines, mind you my suggestion is a case in point. But as a British person I thought I should suggest some Shakespeare (and it was the first thing that came to mind):"Fear no more the heat o' the sun,Nor the furious winter's rages;"

Mind you I also quite like:"Now the hungry lion roarsAnd the wolf behowls the moon"If that's not too fanciful for mittens?!

Thanks Franklin, once again, for sustaining me in small but important ways. I would love to be your neighbor, but cannot live in Chicago (grew up in Homer, Alaska and did my 40yrs of long winter -- but OH! the mittens!)Between Buddhism and being pretty much a weirdo knitter myself (ain't it fun?), I feel related with you in spirit.

Totally OT on the mittens, here. But had to thank you, Franklin, for your completed sock post and mentioning Charlene Schurch's book, Sensational Knitted Socks. I went to Amazon, I read the blurbs, I ordered. (Used, as I'm on a fixed budget.) It just got here yesterday, and I'm in love. *Great* book, esp. w/the different instructions including 2 circulars, which I prefer - one reason I jumped at it. I likely would've spent hours researching umpteen sock books had I not read your post, and still be dithering over which might be best for a novice sock knitter. Thanks much, and grateful hugs!

Wow, you got some lovely poetry suggestions. I was going to suggest the actual verbiage you probably use in, say Feburary..."yes, it is fucking cold". Not poetry in the strictest sense, but perhaps you could work it in as some performance art.

from Eliot's A Dedication to My Wife is short enough. I'd love to see these mittens. I used to quilt words into blankets, but one had to go looking for them. Words on mittens would be wearing one's heart at the end of one's sleeves, no?

'Summer broke and drained. Now we are safe.The days lose confidence, and can be facedIndoors.'

Philip Larkin, 'So through that unripe day', from The North Ship. Not the one about his mum and dad. ;) I'm also quite fond of the last few lines of 'Winter'. Or 'All catches alight': 'A drum taps: a wintry drum.'

There is another "winter is icumen in" parody, the details of which (author, possible inaccuracies in my remembered version) I cannot for the life of me track down, but it might do the job for mittens:

I wanted to knit the Islamic socks from Nancy Bush's Folk Socks when I realized that part of the striping included the words "Allah." I think I'm going to replace it, because as much as I'm a fan of Islam, I'm not Islamic, and it would feel weird wearing that on my feet.

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